A. The huge catch for me is that my shop is a long way from my WIFI network. I am sure I could fix this problem with Amplifiers / Boosters / Antennas and other equipment but I don’t really know what to buy to make it happen. I can read direction and hook it up but equipment descriptions are useless.

B. I have read that I can generate a file with EASEL and then carry my laptop into the shop and use special drivers to run the X-Carve (if it ever comes in). With this method if I have to change design or fix some thing I have to return to the house and make changes, save the file etc etc.

C. V-Carve is a stand alone CAM software. No internet required to run it. YAY!! To run my project I have to process the output and then load it into EASEL?? Now I am back to A or B.

These are done manually and not via a series of prompts that Easel uses. So one must create their own checklist of actions to follow. If these standard actions aren’t done, you’ll ruin material, maybe even cause mechanical issues with the machine if it runs into hard stops and such.

Easel’s machine setup will also make sure that GRBL is relatively correct in its setting on the initial power-on. It also helps with swapping axis directions if needed, which eliminates the manual lookup of GRBL configuration settings to swap an axis’ direction.

I personally use UGS and love it. The newer Platform builds work amazing.

I am based in the USA - New Orleans to be exact. Looks like Carbide Create is a good deal and perhaps I should have looked at their machines. I thought the Sha****O was built by Inventables.

Many years ago I bought a vinyl cutter and a ton of vinyl only to be disappointed by the limited software. At the time it was over $700 for software just to get the thing to do more than cut circles and squares. Easel is good software, but Cloud based just means some one else’s computer.

the X-Carve is based off of the Shapoko2 (think of it like a branch) but the biggest difference is the open source design. when I got mine they did not have a large machine released yet (they do now) and they do not release the source (blue prints) of the machine so that you can make your own parts from them.

having the source will have an advantage to the end user in time as when they no longer support (or close shop) the user can make their own parts as needed. So I would say you made the right choice as you can always design new upgrades based on the source or just duplicate the original parts as needed.

Hope it’s ok if I jump in here. If I were to buy VCarve Desktop, would this work with the x-carve? From what I read, I would have to export the gcode, imput into easel, and then cut? Would this provide me a preview in easel? What are other software that would work better, if any?
Thanks!